He talked about the drive to Vevey, the habits and customs of the Swiss, digressed into comparisons between the peasant classes of various countries. Katherine, who had wandered over most of the beaten track in Europe, supplied his arguments with illustrations. She loved to hear him talk. His knowledge was wide and accurate, his criticisms vigorous. The strength of his intellectual fibre alone differentiated him, in her eyes, from ordinary men. His vision was so clear, his touch upon all subjects so firm, and yet, at need, so delicate; she felt herself so infinitely little of mind compared with him. They talked on till past midnight; but long ere that the conversation had drifted around things intimately subjective. As they parted for the night at the end of Katherine's corridor, she could not help saying to him somewhat humbly,-- “Thank you for the talks. You do not know how I value them. They lift me into a different atmosphere.” Raine looked at her a little wonderingly. Her point of view had never occurred to him. Thoroughly honest and free from vanity of every kind, he could not even now quite comprehend it. “It is you who raise me,” he replied. “To talk with you is an education in all fine and delicate things. How many women do you think there are like you?” His words rang soothingly in her ear until she slept. In the morning she seemed to wake to a newer conception of life. And as the days went by, and their talks alone together on the balcony, in the Jardin Anglais, and where not, deepened in intimacy, and the nature of the man she loved unfolded itself gradually like a book before her perceptive feminine vision, this conception broadened into bolder, clearer definition. Hitherto she had been fiercely maintaining her inalienable right to whatever chance of happiness offered itself in her path. Now she felt humbled, unworthy, a lesser thing than he, and her abasement brought her a sweet, pure happiness. At first she had loved him, she scarce knew why, because he was he, because her heart had leapt towards him. But now the self-chastening brought into being a higher love, tender and worshipping, such as she had dreamed over in a lonely woman's wistful reveries. She lost the sense of rivalry with Felicia, strove in unobtrusive ways to win back her friendship. But Felicia, sweet and effusive to others, to Katherine remained unapproachable. At last a great womanly pity arose in Katherine's heart. The victory that she was ever becoming more conscious of gaining awakened all her generous impulses and tendernesses. Her love for Raine had grown too beautiful a thing to allow of unworthy thrills of triumph. For the rest, it was a happy sunlit time. The past faded into dimness. She lived from day to day blinded to all but the glowing radiance of her love.